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Love vs. Health
by
“No–not beautiful, perhaps,–but very, very pretty, and so loveable!”
“Well,” rejoined Julius, coldly, after some hesitation, “Mary is pretty; her eye is beautiful; her whole face intelligent, but so pale, so thin–her lips so colourless–her hands so transparent, that I cannot look at her with any pleasure. I declare to you, Anne, when I see a woman with a lively eye, a clear, healthy skin, that shows the air of Heaven visits it daily–it may be, roughly–if it pleases, Heaven to roughen the day,–an elastic, vigorous step, and a strong, cheerful voice, I am ready to fall down and do her homage!”
Julius Hasen was sincere and zealous in his theory, but he is not the first man whose theories Love has overthrown. “Love laughs at locksmiths.” and mischievously mocks at the stoutest bars and bolts of resolution.
Hasen passed the summer in his native town. He renewed his intimacy with his old neighbours. He perceived in Mary graces and qualities that made him feel the heavenly and forget the earthly; and, in spite of his wise, well-considered resolution, in three months he had impressed on her “pale cheek” the kiss of betrothal, and slipt an the third finger of her “transparent hand,” the “engagement ring!”
But, we must do Julius Hasen justice. When his laughing sister rallied him on his inconsistency, he said–
“You are right, Anne; but I adhere to my text, though I must now uphold it as a beacon–not as an example. I must say with the Turk–‘It was written.'”
He was true to himself and true to his wife; and, at the risk of shocking our young lady readers, we must betray that, after the wedding-ring, Hasen’s first gift to Mary was–“The Principles of Physiology applied to the Preservation of Health, and the Improvement of Physical and Mental Education; by Andrew Combe, M. D.” This book (which should be studied by every Mother in the United States) he accompanied by a solemn adjuration, that she would study and apply it. He did not stop here. After his marriage, he bought two riding-horses–mounted his bride on one and himself on the other, and thus performed the greater part of the journey to Indiana–only taking a rail-car for convenience, or a steamer for repose!
And, arrived at his Western home, and with the hearty acquiescence of his wife, who only needed to know the right, to pursue it, she began a physical life in obedience to the laws laid down by the said oracle, Andrew Combe.
Last fall, six years since his marriage, he brought his wife and two children to visit his Eastern friends. In reply to compliments on all hands, on his wife’s improved health and beauty, he laughingly proposed to build, on the site of the old Indian dwelling, a quadrangular Temple, dedicated to the Four Ministers to Health–Air, Water, Exercise, and Regimen!